Daily Gleaner, December 30, 1898

Balaclava.

The " Grand" Market on Saturday the 24th was a phenomenal success in Balaclava.

The peasantry seem to have waited in the surrounding regions for that gala outing, for they swarmed into the village in thousands, and many declare never since the railway time was such a gathering on a Saturday here. It is asserted - and with apparent truth - that Mr. Charles Phang, the Chinese merchant, took cash across the counter £180 besides £20 wholesale of rum. We know as a fact that he emptied a 120 gallon puncheon of rum between Friday morning and Saturday night.

If the other stores did in comparison then fully £1,000 flowed into Balaclava on that day.

The market was elaborately filled with everything that could possibly be required

for a happy and cheerful household and the multitude behaved with pleasurable

decorum and happiness, not a single drunken arrest was made. On Sunday calmness marked the scene and precincts; no yelling, no squibs disturbed the day. Churches were filled and a pleasant day was ended with a splendid fall of rain, lasting from 6 p.m. till 7 30 p.m.

On Monday the people could be seen in hundreds promenading the high way

quietly enjoying themselves in a rational manner.

All this brings the reflection that the peasantry of the country are happy and do not think with the minority, that Jamaica is a ruined island and the Government

a detriment to its advance and welfare

[note to myself: I must get a web page done on Charles Phang, who was a notable businessman.]

advertisement for Charles Phang's store in Balaclava for December 1907/January 1908, after the great earthquake of January 1907.

Charles Adolphus Duncan Phang

Daily Gleaner, Sept 5, 1907

Balaclava, to a large extent, is indebted to Mr. Charles Phang's energy and enterprise for its rapid growth. Indeed no other single man has been so instrumental in giving much needed employment to tradesmen and others. His fine new building containing ten apartments, with full length verandah in front, to be let to respectable tenants, is rapidly drawing towards completion.

Daily Gleaner, June 17, 1910

Mr. Charles Phang [is] the leading Chinese merchant in the dry goods, provision and produce trade in Jamaica.

Born in British Guiana, Mr. Phang arrived in Jamaica in 1890 and in 1892 started business in Balaclava, St. Elizabeth, where he is still located. By perseverance he has been successful in whatever he has attempted. He married a sister of T. Leahong, Esq., of this city and has a large family; his two eldest daughters having the distinction of being the first Chinese girls to enter as students in the Royal Academy of Music, London; while the third is still at college at Bath, Somerset, England

In the late summer of 1931 the business in Balaclava burned down, and in the remaining years of Charles Phang's life, it seems that his wife, Mary, increasingly managed his business affairs.

1951